The field of the invention is generally asynchronous transactions. “There are several solutions available that measure transaction response times, such as measuring the response time as seen by a client, or measuring how long a method on an application server takes to complete.” Application Response Time Measurement (ARM), Issue 4.0, Version 2-C Binding, p. 13, http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699959899/toc.pdf (hereinafter “ARM 4.0”). Application Response Measurement (ARM) can be used for this purpose. “ARM provides a facility for correlating transactions within and across systems.” Id.
ARM is an Open Group standard for measuring transaction response times. ARM helps in identifying bottlenecks in response times and to find out the component causing the response time issue. Applications are complex in terms of the number of systems and products involved in completing the transaction topology, for example, because of the distributed nature of transactions. Many of the application management vendors rely on ARM API calls emitted by applications to measure transaction response times. If the transaction flows through multiple systems, correlation of different parts of the transaction happens by passing an ARM “correlator” across the network between different parts of the transaction topology.
ARM helps in measuring response time of transactions passing through disparate systems like a web server, J2EE® application server, databases, mainframe systems, etc. ARM manages to correlate different parts of a transaction, happening on different systems/products, by maintaining the parent-child relationship between transactions by passing a token called a “correlator” as it goes through these different systems/products. This concept works fairly well when in synchronous calls between different systems in the transaction topology. J2EE® is a registered trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States, other countries, or both.